Can a feminist wear the Niqab and/or a Burka? Should we judge a woman who was raped by the skimpiness of her clothing? Should the government control what happens inside a woman’s body? How far have women come in America and how do they compare with women in other countries? Should we judge societies by how they treat women? Poor women? Is the separation of women and men in Islamic countries gender apartheid, or analogous to the Elks Club and ladies auxiliary??

Hadear will join us to talk about Muslim feminists, our perceptions of Muslim women, their perceptions of us, what progress women are making in Islamic countries. We’ll have a look at how status of women varies around the world.

Robin will join us to talk about her novel, My Name is Mary Sutter, the story of one woman who starts out as a midwife and yearns to become a surgeon. Since this was an unlikely occupation for a woman in the mid-1800′s, she was rejected time and again from medical school and eventually answers the call of reformer Dorothea Dix to become a nurse just as the Civil War is beginning. She was at first even turned down for that because of the strict social regulations of the time for women and men.

How much progress have women made since the Civil War? How many women around the world live today like Mary Sutter? And, is American society backsliding with the recent legislation proposed by the Republican dominated House of Representatives?

We have separation of church and state in the constitution, right? We have churches and synagogues everywhere. There already IS a mosque near the World Trade Center site, so what’s with the conservative noise machine?

Sarah Palin demanded that “peaceful Muslims” step and “refudiate” the plan; Newt Gingrich denounced the building of such a “mosque” as long as Saudi Arabia bars construction of churches and synagogues; Rick Lazio, a Republican campaigning for the governorship of New York state, asserted that the plan somehow subverted the right of New Yorkers “to feel safe and be safe.” “Mosque controversy is just the beginning,” Stephan Salisbury, Salon.com, Aug 10, 2020

So, Americans are scared of Islamic terrorists. Newt, at least, calls it “radical Islam,” making a distinction (if you can call it that) between Islam and “radical” Islam. Sarah doesn’t make such distinctions. And people are getting all fired up, protesting the proposed mosque in lower Manhattan as well as those in Tennessee, California, Georgia, Kentucky, Wisconsin, and Illinois.

So, is our perception of the religion of Islam correct? And how would Christianity stand up if it was scrutinized with the same lens that we use for Islam?

Many people have persuasively argued over the past several years that Islamophobia weakens our security and threatens our values. The fact that Muslim Americans strongly denounce terrorism, prove their patriotism, and serve their communities and nation every single day has been demonstrated in ways large and small. Yet anti-Muslim hateful speech still thrives.

SOURCE: AP/Mark Lennihan This building near Ground Zero in Manhattan is the proposed site of a future 13-story mosque and Islamic cultural center.